1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a spelling check, and more particularly to an improved spelling check method or wild card search method for processing words based on their pronounced sounds.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Spelling check is one of important tools in application software, such as word processing, data base, or spreadsheet, whereby to determine the correctness of a word or/and even correct it.
Conventional spelling check tool verifies a word based on its letter combination instead of its sound. For example, if a user types in `maskito` erroneously instead of `mosquito`, the conventional spelling check tool probably responds by providing `masking` or `mascot`, but never the desired `mosquito` provided. Similarly, in another example, if the user enters `confidanshal` or `kanfedential` erroneously instead of `confidential`, the conventional spelling check tool could not recognize it.
Users, especially those speaking English as their second language, used to type in a word according to its pronunciation when they could not remember the approximate spell of the word. For example, the user probably types in `sbend` instead of `spend`, types in `sdudent` instead of `student`, or types in `sgool` instead of `school` because of his or her incorrect pronunciation. For the former two cases, `spend` or `student` can be recognized by the conventional spelling check tool due to their similar forms of letter combination. However, for the latter case, `spool` or `stool` may be provided by the conventional spelling check tool, but never the desired `school` provided, due to their different forms of letter combination even though `sgool` sounds most similarly to `school`.
Wild card search is one of the search functions in the conventional spelling check tool. However, with the same reason mentioned above in regard to the conventional spelling check, conventional wild card search is also rendered useless if the spelling mistake is made by inputting words with similar sound rather than similar letter combination. For example, `receipt` could not be recognized by the conventional wild card search if the user enters `res*t`, wherein c in ci sounds the same as s in si.
It is, therefore, desirable to propose an improved spelling check method or wild card search method for processing words based on their pronounced sounds.